For thousands nonhuman animal have been legal things in Western law, incapable of possessing those legal rights that protect even their most fundamental interests. In this session, I will discuss how the Nonhuman Rights Project is seeking to change the legal status of at least some nonhuman animals from "things" that lack the capacity for any legal rights to "persons" who have the capacity for numerous legal rights, what legal theories it has developed, how it obtains the facts that it introduces into evidence in support of those legal theories, where it chooses to litigate, and how it chooses its plaintiffs.